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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: What should be in hardware but isn't (LISP hardware?)
Message-ID: <2448@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Oct-87 14:51:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.2448
Posted: Fri Oct  2 14:51:44 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Oct-87 07:04:06 EDT
References: <581@l.cc.purdue.edu| <28200048@ccvaxa| <2910@ames.arpa| <2917@ames.arpa| <2913@husc6.UUCP|
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT.
Lines: 22
Keywords: LISP and Prolog machines
Xref: mnetor comp.arch:2508 comp.lang.smalltalk:351

In article <2913@husc6.UUCP> reiter@harvard.UUCP (Ehud Reiter) writes:
|The special hardware that LISP machines tend to have are:
|
|   1) Tagged data.  The tags give data type.  A word in memory might, for
|example, consist of 32 data bits and a 4 bit type field.
|
|   2) Memory management.  Support for CONS and for garbage collection.
|
|   3) Special caches, instruction sets, etc., which are geared towards LISP.
|
|[This list is by no means exhaustive]

This looks like much the same sort of stuff that one would want for
Smalltalk.  Has anyone looked at implementing Smalltalk on Lisp machines?

(Of course, if Lisp machines really *don't* give better Lisp performance for
the price than conventional architectures, it is unlikely that they would do
better for Smalltalk.)
-- 

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Ashton-Tate          52 Oakland Ave North         E. Hartford, CT 06108